Lake Neuron » Lake Neuron | Checking in

Well, I’ve been sloppy about blog posts the past week or two, because I’ve been putting everything on Facebook and I was so wrapped up in Relay.

I’ve about recovered, although I’ll get another taste tomorrow, when I go to visit Marshall County’s Relay For Life and take a few photos of it for the Tribune. I went to Tullahoma’s Relay in 2014, but this will just be the second time I’ve been to a Relay event other than Bedford County’s. Trina Rios, the chair of Marshall County’s event, came to ours last weekend, and I was able to introduce her to Jennifer Smith, one of our two co-chairs. I’m looking forward to seeing how Marshall County does Relay.

Marshall County’s event is not overnight — it runs from noon until midnight on Saturday. The American Cancer Society used to require that Relay events take place overnight. It was part of the symbolism of the event — it symbolized a cancer patient passing through the dark night of illness and emerging on the other side, either in remission or, barring that, at least an end to pain. There are enough prime-time or daylight hours for the public — since we want the public to come and patronize the various concessions run by our teams. But then the wee hours of the morning are just for the walkers, and the people on the track at 3 a.m. can take a special kind of pride in their participation. That’s the way it works in Bedford County.

ACS, however, dropped the overnight requirement. Part of the event must still take place after dark — so that you can have a luminaria ceremony — but you don’t have to go overnight. Some communities are moving to a schedule that puts their entire event during the day and/or evening, so that they can maximize public attendance and the concession/festival aspects of Relay.

I understand this, and support the communities making that choice, but I also have a soft spot in my heart for the symbolism of that overnight walk. I think of the late Dr. Gordy Klatt, who started Relay For Life in Tacoma, Washington, by running for 24 hours as an individual fund-raiser. I imagine him running at 3 a.m., and still being on the track as the eastern sky started to lighten up a bit. I think of him running as the sun rises, and I smile.

During Relay, I posted a closeup of my Martha Deason Award plaque to Facebook, as well as the funny video where I drop my phone as my name is called. The closeup of the plaque got a lot of hits and likes, so I felt it would be overkill to add the photo that my co-worker Adria took of me using my T-G camera a few minutes later. But I liked that photo, which went into the T-G today, and so I’ll share it here.

I still don’t know why they presented the award at night — in the past, it’s been part of the general awards given out at the end of Relay. I was walking back from somewhere, and Jennifer and Sharon stepped out of the gazebo to make an announcement. They mentioned the Martha Deason Award, which is our local Relay’s traditional volunteer-of-the-year plaque. I’d been making video all night, of course, and figured I’d capture the Deason award presentation as part of that. My smartphone was on a small, portable charger — the basic size and shape of a sleeve of Hall’s cough drops — with a cable connecting the two. Sharon was talking about the award, and when she got to my name, I was surprised enough that I let go of the charger. It dropped to the end of its cable and then jerked the phone out of my hand. I didn’t technically drop the phone all the way, just fumbled with it.